The numbers astound Frederic Ury and Michael Fitzpatrick, two local
lawyers.

From 1985 to Feb. 15, 2008, Connecticut's prison population has soared
from 5,422 to 19,690.

If the trend continues, the prison population could surpass 25,000
in just four years.

"If those represented the numbers of people attending our institutions
of higher learning I would say that's fantastic," said Fitzpatrick,
past president of the Connecticut Criminal Defense Lawyers Association. "Unfortunately,
those are the extraordinary numbers of people in our prisons."

Along with the increased numbers, the average daily cost of keeping
an inmate incarcerated has also soared. It's risen from $58.68 a day
in fiscal year 1989-90 to $86.08 last fiscal year.

"It's crazy," state Rep. Michael Lawlor, D-East Haven, said. "We
are spending more money to run our prisons than run our colleges."

The population numbers so concern Ury that he believes it warrants
looking into. "Think about it," said Ury, a former president
of the Connecticut Bar Association. "In just a 20-year period,
we have quadrupled the number of people in our prisons and no one seems
to be concerned about it."

But the increase projected by the Connecticut Bar Association to hit
25,000 or more by 2012 doesn't surprise Lawlor or Henry Schissler,
an associate professor of sociology at Housatonic Community College.
Nor is it a surprise to Sally Joughin, co-founder of People Against
Injustice, a New Haven-based prisoner

rights advocacy group, or Thomas Tracy Jr., who at just 42, admits
he has been in and out of jail 26 times.

Since Jan. 1, the state has added at least another 252 inmates into
its system. Broken down, the Jan. 1 figure of 19,438 includes 15,001
sentenced inmates and 4,437 pre-trial detainees. Broken down further,
it represents 18,144 male inmates and 1,294 female. Look further and
you'll find 8,360 blacks, 5,199 Hispanics, 5,750 whites and 129 designated
as "others."

Schissler believes the disparity between whites and minorities is "all
about poverty."

"Many of these people were raised in financially-stricken, security-stricken,
parentally-stricken and educationally-stricken environments," he
said.

But he said if the national media, which spent months probing and
anticipating the results of the Iowa presidential caucus, simply looked
at conditions in that state, they would find enormous numbers of young
whites in jail after turning to crystal meth and crime.

"These are children of generations of farmers who are losing
their farms," Schissler said. "These kids are seeing the
complete obliteration of everything they've known. These are white
kids behaving like inner city groups turning to drugs and crime because
of poverty."

Unfortunately, the sociologist said, society finds "it's easier
to damn the person and throw them in jail" than "look at
the big picture and work to create opportunities."

But the war on drugs, which intensified in the 1980s, is not the only
reason for the state's growing prison population.

Off the top of his head, Lawlor, co-chair of the powerful state legislature's
Judiciary Committee, can cite almost a dozen reasons.

Drug violence and crack sales led to the Legislature imposing harsher
penalties. As of Jan. 1, 2,824 of Connecticut's sentenced inmates are
there for possession or sale of narcotics. Another 1,035 are there
for robbery and 667 for third-degree burglary.

The outcry over a revolving door of recidivism led to the truth-in-sentencing
laws of 1993 and 1994, according to legislators and prosecutors.

"That required violent criminals to serve 85 percent of their
sentence and everyone else to do at least 50 percent of their term," said
Lawlor. "Before the truth-in-sentencing laws, inmates were only
serving 10 to 20 percent of their terms. We also took away good time
credit and the ability to be free on supervised home release."

"That's a big difference," said Bridgeport State's Attorney
Jonathan Benedict. "I don't think this office is seeking greater
sentences for the same crime than we did when I started 30 years ago.
But inmates are serving more time on their sentences than they were
30 years ago."

Furthermore, Benedict said drug dealers are treated better than they
were in the 1980s.

"Back then, a cocaine dealer arrested for the first time would
get three to five years in prison," he said. "Today, the
first-time dealer, as long as an exorbitant amount isn't involved,
gets a suspended sentence and probation. Sometimes it's multiple offenses
before they go to jail."

Lawlor also said the mainstreaming of mentally ill patients into the
community without proper supervision resulted in many being sent to
prison.

"The hospitals wouldn't take them and the police couldn't deal
with them," he said. "So it was easier to place them in jail."

In the past decade, the Legislature approved mandatory minimum sentences,
enhanced terms for persistent felony offenders and new laws to deal
with drunken drivers, domestic violence and sexual predators.

Benedict said legislators are faced with a strange contradiction.

"On one hand they have to control and reduce the prison population
but on the other there's a lot of pressure to keep people in," the
prosecutor said. Following the July break-in and triple murder of a
doctor's family in Cheshire by two suspects who were parolees, parole
was halted until recently. "I have several clients who expected
to be released on parole," Fitzpatrick said. "They now believe
they have a better shot at winning the lottery."

Now Gov. M. Jodi Rell is pushing "a three strikes and your out
law," which imposes life terms on those convicted of three serious
felonies.

But Tracy, the convicted felon, believes that's the most dangerous
law the Legislature could impose.

"You tell someone they're going away for life if they get caught
well they're not going down easy," he said. "They're going
to bring danger to themselves, the people around them and the people
who come to get them. That's a high price to pay."

And now, with the state's prisons bursting beyond their 18,000- plus
capacity, Lawlor sees only three options.

The most obvious he said is "to build more prisons."

Last November it was estimated that building another prison would
cost at least $260 million, and Rell is calling upon the state Legislature
to fund another 125 corrections officers.

"Prison has become a big business," adds Joughin, of People
Against Injustice. "It creates jobs. It makes money for the suppliers
and the telephone companies who charge extra for the collect calls
inmates make."

Another option to reduce the population is by "releasing more
non-violent inmates," Lawlor said.

In the past the state has cut prison population as much as 10 percent
by early release of non-violent inmates.

"That's always the quick fix," Fitzpatrick said "cherry
pick the less violent for release."

Finally, Lawlor said "we can do nothing and face being sued in
federal court. Then we'll get a federal judge running our prisons."

Fitzpatrick would rather see long-term steps taken like doing away
with the mandatory minimum sentences. "Let the judges and not
the legislators pass judgment," he said. "In my 21 years
of practicing criminal law, I've always felt the judiciary is capable
of setting appropriate and fair sentences, taking into account the
crime and the defendant."

Fitpatrick, like Schissler and Stephen Cox, chairman of Central Connecticut
State University's criminology department, believes the best approach
is to attack the reasons for crime.

"No one wants to hear about the factors that cause people to
commit crimes substance abuse, joblessness, homelessness," Fitzpatrick
said. "They just want them locked up and out of sight."

"We can start by making bigger investments in our inner cities," said
Cox.

"We need politicians who will stop playing the sound-bite game," Schissler
said. "We know the pieces that need to be fixed better education,
substance abuse treatment programs; jobs with living wages so why are
we choosing not to fix them?" In the meantime, Brian Garnett,
a spokesman for the state Corrections Department, said his agency has
been able to deal with the increased prison population.

But what about programs for inmates?

Fitzpatrick said several of his clients are unable to get into programs
inside prison.

"We don't have the ability to put everyone in school or a substance
abuse program at the same time," Garnett said.

Garnett said there are waiting lists at some institutions requiring
them to prioritize who goes into which program.

"Anyone under 21 without a high school diploma or a GED gets
first call," he said. "Last year we graduated 1,000 inmates."

The same is true for a substance abuse program.

"We can't put everyone in the program at the same time," he
said. "So those closest to going out the door get in. We feel
the treatment will be fresh in their minds and have the greatest effect."

Garnett said that the department creates a plan for each inmate by
identifying their weaknesses and attempting to get them into programs
that will address their issues.

"We have invested heavily into working to prepare the inmate
for a successful reintegration into society," he said.

A study done by Central Connecticut State University determined that
if Corrections offered no help to an inmate, roughly 50 percent would
be back in prison.

However, that same study found that using a halfway house to transition
an inmate from prison to society reduced the return rate to about 24
percent.

"So we've doubled the number of halfway house beds from 600 in
2003 to 1,200 today," Garnett said.

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